your mind." He held out a bunch of arbutus, redolent of woodland purity. "Such pink and white, good little flowers, just like you," he added, and laughed as Martha, the color rising in her cheeks, called him a silly boy. Silent with happiness. they walked through the silent streets arched with softly swaying elms. The fragrance of freshly turned garden beds lay on the breeze, bringing to the man an unquestioning sense of peace with all the world, and to the woman a vague distrust of loveliness whose enjoyment was the heritage of the indolent in this Puritanic village.

The next Friday night the members of the class gathered, each in garments so strongly imbued with the wearer's personality that they would have acquitted themselves with credit had the owners happened to be absent. With all the stiffness that assails even old friends at a formal gathering, making them as awkwardly uncommunicative as if freshly introduced, they sat about Mrs. Ames's parlor.

As Mr. Ames had discreetly found "business at the store", the party was composed only of members of the class. Soon the wheels of conversation, which had at first stuck and creaked, ran more smoothly. Miss Myers proved herself but yet a woman by recounting the woes which the college matron was undergoing with the college chamber-maids. Then a recipe for chocolate cake was discussed and a new scheme for inducing hens to lay, considered. Then, common bonds other than Ruskin, having been tentatively tested and found firm and strong, the affairs of the village were laid as bare as if the white clapboarded walls lay prostrate on the lawns. There was no topic left undiscussed, Martha realised with sadness, except Art.

When supper was announced, the ladies trooped into the dining-room with right good will. But Martha was yet grave as she helped herself to the delicious cake from the dish that purported to be a Leghorn hat, ate the delicate ice on the plate that would fain be a leaf, and sipped the clear coffee from a cup encircled by a blue china ribbon. Mrs. Ames did not agree with Ruskin that "the structure should be what it pretends to be". To her mind a thing was pretty in so far as it, of one stuff, represented itself to be of another. And she had the courage of her convictions.

So long did the ladies dally, warmed by Mrs. Ames's geniality and served by her generous hand, that John Perry called at the door to escort Martha to her home before the time was ripe for the presentation of the gift. Assuring Mrs. Ames that he was afraid to come in, he stayed in the hall and there basely peered through a crack in the door. Therefore he saw the self-consciousness which covered as with a garment each member of the class except Miss Myers, when Mrs. Ames, more beaming than ever, rose to make her speech. "Now, Miss Myers," said she, "these ladies have asked me to tell you how much we've enjoyed having you with us this year, telling us all about Art, and travelling way from South Greece through the blizzard for those lessons on The Queen of the Air. So we wanted to give you a little present. And Miss Briggs and I thought a picture would be appropriate, and here it is."

John abruptly buried his head in his overcoat when, produced from behind the sideboard, he saw the appropriate gift. Alas, that we have all seen such. It is a big tinted photograph, with gilt filigrees at the corners. It presents a fat-faced damsel, her plump arms wreathed about her much-curled head.

Over her night-dress she wears a pink scarf and a blue cloak. She leans against a background which might be either a cliff or a clothes horse. Sometimes when the picture is not called "Innocence" it is known as "Waiting", but most frequently it is tagged with the mystic phrase, "Art Study”.

Perhaps Miss Myers possessed tact among her other means of livelihood, perhaps she herself had not left far behind the "Art Study" period; perhaps she realized that the friendliness which prompted the gift was a more precious possession than an Old Master. At all events, her acceptance was all that could have been desired.

It was with cheery good-nights that the party broke up, and the women, either with the escorts who had called for them, or offering each other mutual protection in the deserted streets, scurried off and disappeared round corners.

The great white disk of the moon hung behind a black tracery of elm branches. The lace work of the shadow lay on the walk, transforming it into a magic path. The darkened houses retreated into mystery, and in the freedom of midnight a certain lushness of beauty, suppressed in the day hours, hung heavy on the air. The prosaic town became almost oppressive in its enchantment.

Once out of hearing of the Ames house, John gave way to his pent-up glee and laughed until he leaned against a tree for support.

"Oh," cried Martha, grieved and indignant, "how can you laugh? It is all so pitiable. The whole winter's work, and that for a result!" He nodded, at first speechless. "That's the joke," he gasped. "I'm sure there's nothing funny in it," she reproached him. “And you ought not to regard such good, good people as ridiculous. It's wrong."

As he caught the hint of a sob in the voice, he forgot that there was anything in the world but an earnest upturned face, the eyes shining with tears in the moonlight. So together they passed down the elm-clasped vista, together as they would pass through life, with problems to solve beside which the Ruskin class would become the trifle which indeed it was.

GRACE LATHROP COLLIN '96

A new Smith College Club was organized last spring, one that has begun already to exert an influence, by interesting girls in Smith. Mrs. Grace Green Clark '82, of Pasadena, sent out an invitation to the Smith women, resident and visiting in Southern California, to meet at her home February 20, and fifteen were able to respond in person. It proved a most delightful reunion, especially to those who have been unable to go east for several years.

The earlier students told of college life as it was in its pristine simplicity, when the President took the girls on sleigh rides, for fear they might study too hard, and not have enough relaxation. Two recent poems of Anne Branch '97 were read, and Zephine Humphrey read one of her stories, "The Calling of the Apostle Paul."

A club was formally organized, to be called "The Smith College Club of Southern California", with Mrs. Clark as president, Mrs. Minnie Barton Foote '88, vice-president, and Rejoyce Collins '98, secretary and treasurer. It hopes to number among its members all of the twenty-five or thirty Smith

women, whether graduates or not, living in Southern California. Those who were present at the first reunion were Frances Lewis '81, Grace Green Clark '82, Ella C. Clark '84, Minnie Barton Foote '88, Cornelia Church '88, Zephine Humphrey '96, of Dorset, Vermont, Ethelwyn Foote '97, Elizabeth Hay '98, of Chicago, Rejoyce Collins '98, Emily Stanton '99, Blanche Bissell '02, of Detroit, Ruth Clizbie Merriam, ex-'84, of Springfield, Massachusetts, Teresa Cloud ex-'99, Marion Towne ex-'99, Minneapolis, and Clara Carter ex-'04.

The next meeting was a picnic on September 11, at Long Beach, when five young girls, who are preparing for Smith, were the guests of honor. It was decided to have an annual luncheon at Pasadena, between Christmas and New Year, so that any tourist Smithites who are in the vicinity may join with the club.

There are six or eight young girls from Los Angeles and Pasadena who will enter Smith in the next two years, and the Club has been the means of persuading some of these to select Smith, and hopes to do so with many others.

All alumnæ visiting the college are requested to register in a book kept for that purpose in the Registrar's Office. The list of visitors since the last issue is as follows:

Contributions to this department are desired by the last of the month, in order to appear in the next month's issue, and should be sent to Josephine Sanderson, Hubbard House.

'96. Mrs. William W. Harts (Martha Hale) has returned from Manila, and her address is 2574 Union Street, San Francisco, California.

'00. Helen Stout Griswold was called home during the summer from the Philippines and Japan, because of the serious illness of her father, who died early in November. Her present address is 21 South Hawk Street, Albany, New York.

Mary S. Whitcomb and her fiancé, Mr. Alden H. Clark, have been appointed by the A. B. C. F. M. to the Marathi Mission in India, and expect to leave this country next fall. Her address is Crafts Road, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Mary C. Wilder has announced her engagement to Mr. Everett E. Kent of Newton, Massachusetts.

'02. Caroline Gleason was married September 9, to Mr. Thomas S. Larkin. Her present address is 214 North 3rd Street, Olean, New York.

02. Helen E. Kelley has announced her engagement to Mr. Chauncey H. Marsh of East Orange, New Jersey.

Margaret V. Lusch has announced her engagement to Mr. Charles D. Allen of Brooklyn, New York.

'03. Marguerite Prescott Olmsted's present address is 86 Mariner Street, The Marlborough, Buffalo, New York.

BIRTHS

ex-94. Mrs. Merrill (Kitty Earl Lyall), a son, Oliver Boutwell, Jr., born November 13.

'96.

Mrs. Howard Clarke (Clara Whitmore Bates), a son, Norman Rhodes, born December 1.

'02. Mrs. Grosthwaite (Helena Porteous), a daughter, Helena, born in Sep

tember.

ABOUT COLLEGE

If you take a walk out into the world-the changeless world, not the world of people—and watch the mountains, and the dark, straight trees, and the meeting line of sky and earth, you are, perhaps,

Lecture by Miss Davies filled with a sense of beauty which permeates, beauty of sky adding to beauty of earth. And if you are reflective, you will perhaps contrast with it a walk through a world of people, where it seems as though it were not beauty but ugliness which permeates-not health but disease which is contagious. Thus, through the analogy of nature, you have been prepared for an understanding of the basal principle of so-called philanthrophy.

The principle of permeation—that the good of the higher classes of society must permeate the lower, and the disease of the lower contaminating the higher, must be removed, if society itself is to develop towards its idealwas given by Miss Davies, Head-worker of the Philadelphia Branch of the College Settlement Association, as the guiding principle of college settlements. Miss Davies' lecture was held in Chemistry Hall on Monday evening, November 23, under the auspices of the Smith College Branch of the College Settlement Association. The lecture began with a sketch of the underlying principle of Settlement work. Its immediate guide being found in the relation of member to member in society, its basis for work is found in the uplifting of the home-in a fuller development of the power of control within the household. For this principle of discipline a Settlement must stand as a concrete example. Its direct object must be to work from and through the things which the people now desire to a desire for something better,—a desire keen enough to bring with it an impulse toward its attainment. The Settlement thus serves as a guide in the awakening of desire and the aiding of attainment in the bettering of social conditions.

The stereopticon views shown by Miss Davies brought the actual forms of work, of which these principles are the basis, vividly before the audience. The boy, whose sullen expression seems to indicate pride in mischief and shame in virtue, and yet withal a certain submission to the fact that if you handle him in the right way he is quite willing to be "square"; the boy whose reputation has been somewhat blackened by several appearances in the courts, and whose general attitude, combined with the mill-stones of heredity and environment, has written on his face the lines of a criminal; the "little mothers", burdened literally and figuratively with home cares; and the care-free, light-hearted little girl, whose bright cheer makes her the favorite in her circle of society-these are all living problems in which the theories of philanthropy must work themselves out.